0 Video 5

0 Links

http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/mac/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224200501

(Taking a look at censorship in literature in a modern technological context...) Apple is announcing that with the release of its newest product, the iPad, thirty thousand of free e-books would be included. Some of which also includes sexual content, which "suggests Apple is taking a more tolerant approach to old literature than to recent suggestive or explicit apps."


http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/785037--coulter-s-right-to-free-speech-defended

Her recent ignorant comments about Muslim's taking the camel as a form of transportation at a speech at University of Ottawa were defended by some people who believe that she has the right to her, as hateful as it is, freedom of expression just as others have the right to censure it.

0 Project 4

If this doesn't work, see youtube video here.

0 Video Project

For this project, I chose to display the things that causes censorships as well as the general public's opinions and reactions to censorships. I also briefly touched upon how technology is both increasing and impeding the effectiveness of censorship. I also compiled many video footages to demonstrate the wide spectrum of topics that faces censorship. For instance,

Janet Jackson's 'wardrobe malfunction' - media (TV) censorship
The split second of Janet Jackson's right breast caused TV networks to dramatically revise their programmings censorship guidelines. It also indirectly led to Howard Stern, a popular radio host known for his controversial commentaries, leaving traditional radio networks to join a satellite radio that would not censor his commentaries.

Louisiana license plate - media (music) censorship
In 1997, a Louisiana bill is introduced to authorize civil suits against retailers who sell sexually explicit or violent music to minors. Another was introduced to authorize civil suits against booksellers who sell books with any form of nudity to minors. The first bill led to the creation of Concert Rating Systems, which grants the right to imprison concert venue owners if they portray offensive acts or speech.

Lolita - literature censorship
France has banned the book for its evocative and sexually suggestive content

John F Kennedy assassination - political censorship

Bill Henson Debate Conference - art censorship
The questionable artistic merit in Bill Henson's photographs of naked female minors leads to his work being seized by the Australian police

The First Ammendment to the U.S. Constitution
A bill that guarantees citizen's personal basic freedom and protects their freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly and petition against the government. However, the First Ammendment is often criticized as to what determines the extend of free speech (eg. hate speech, racist comments, etc.)

2 Photo Project

Censorship occurs in many different levels in the medium of television. For instance, in news reports, gruesome or revealing body parts may be blurred or pixelated. Censorship also operates in a political level. For example, as an attempt to saturate the country with institutional propagada, the government of Iran streamed its broadcasts during the presidential election in 2009. News offices such as NBC and BBC were raided, with workers arrested and materials confiscated.


With the advent of internet, distribution of pornography rose to prominence. Many activists have proposed censorship of internet pornographic materials from minors, but in truth, anyone can easily gain access to the illicit content simply because the world wide web is nearly impossible to police.


Iran blocks Web sites like Facebook, Twitter and other online websites that would allow people to organize potential protests against the government. Iran also deliberately reduces bandwidth in order prevent transmission of videos recorded from cellular devices, but the video of the dying moments of innocent bystander (Neda) of a anti-government protests still managed to be posted on YouTube, and brought the world into awareness of the then-current real time situation in Iran.



Many parts of China censors online content, such as from social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. They closed more than 100,000 websites last month in efforts of escalating their online censorship. Google recently discovered a sophisticated attack from China on its computer system that targets activists of human rights, and threatens to pull its search engine and offices from China if the country's censorship continues.



Twitter is a microblogging website that allows short status updates to be posted. It's built to spread virally, and unlike facebook and email, tweets sent via twitter are made public. Twitter is therefore an ideal medium for mass protesting movements. While the front pages of Iranian newspapers were full of censored news stories, Twitter was delivering information in real time and served as the primary mode of communication to the outside world after the alleged fraud in Iran's 2009 presidential election.

0 Anti-Censorship Ads

Images from Ad Sneeze